The requisite completion of vast amounts of paperwork is a consequence of day-to-day activity supporting the institutions and bureaucracies pervasive throughout our society. A large fraction of this paperwork involves the collection and dissemination of information that is repetitive and similarly structured. It has been determined over the years that information such as this is most easily collected and organized on documents known as forms. In this context, the modern day form is a document comprising separate data segments associated with selected bits of information, organized in a manner to facilitate the collection and recording of the information from multiple sources. The form is prepared in blank with guiding prompts and later filled in with the requested information as needed.
The use of forms has accelerated and now represents a significant means for collecting and collating information on a large scale. Probably the most notorious form is Form 1040 used by the Internal Revenue Service for tax collection. This particular form is fairly simple, presenting data segments of information in columnar fashion on two sides of a single sheet. Other forms are significantly more complicated and include multiple pages, carbonless paper for duplicate copies, carbon paper, graphic-based images, adhesive layering, perforated edge effects, fold lines, envelope windows, and a multitude of other characteristics depending on the ultimate use of the form. A common example of a more complex form is the form used in conjunction with credit cards.
The preparation of forms has been primarily the responsibility of professional publishing companies using expensive high speed printing presses. The process begins with the design of a form, wherein the organization of the data segments, selection of paper stock, etc. is layed out and configured. This is a highly labor intensive process requiring skill and experience as many options for the form structure will be mutually exclusive. Mock ups of the form are prepared to confirm alignment and other constraints. Once the form is considered to be final, plates are produced for use on the press. A press run is scheduled and the appropriate paper stock and inks are inventoried for the scheduled run. Often a preliminary run is made to insure the resulting form meets the form specifications. Finally, the press is run and the form produced in quantity. The production forms are shipped to the ordering customer.
Although the above discussion is merely a cursory presentation of the form preparation business, two areas should be noted as relevant to the present invention. The first area is the design and engineering of the form, as reflected by the resulting form specifications. The second area is the actual implementation of these specifications in control of the printing operation. In the past, these two operations were highly labor intensive and independently implemented. The design of the form was often accomplished by hand by a draftsperson. The generated specifications were thereafter interpreted by a technician and used to set the control functions for the printing operation. This procedure is a significant cost factor in form engineering and fails to capitalize in subsequent advances in computer control press operations in an effective manner.
There have been efforts to automate the process of form engineering in the past, but these have been mostly limited to very simple forms having minimal flexibility. For example, computer supported form design systems have been prepared that control printing pursuant to select text based symbols and provide a rudimentary ability to create coarse segments on a form. Systems limited to text based structures simply cannot address the requirements of modern multi-faceted form engineering.
There has been created a need for a system capable of creating an environment for the enhanced engineering of complex forms and further a system that generates form specifications with a protocol conforming to the operator control of high speed printing presses.